(g) Inspection and testing of structures (cl.

17)
Inspection of the construction is very important to ensure that it complies
the design. Such inspection should follow a systematic procedure covering
materials, records, workmanship and construction.
All the materials of concrete and reinforcement are to be tested following
the relevant standards. It is important to see that the design and detailing are
capable of execution maintaining a standard with due allowance for the
dimensional tolerances. The quality of the individual parts of the structure should
be verified. If needed, suitable quality assurance schemes should be used. The
concrete should be inspected immediately after the removal of formwork to
remove any defective work before concrete has hardened.
Standard core tests (IS 516) are to be conducted at three or more points
to represent the whole concrete work in case of any doubt regarding the grade of
concrete during inspection either due to poor workmanship or unsatisfactory
results on cube strength obtained following the standard procedure. If the
average equivalent cube strength of cores is equal to at least 85 per cent of the
cube strength of that grade of concrete at that age and each of the individual
cores has strength of at least 75 per cent, then only the concrete represented by
the core test is considered acceptable. For unsatisfactory core test results, load
tests should be conducted for the flexural members and proper analytical
investigations should be made for non-flexural members.
Such load tests should be done as soon as possible after expiry of 28
days from the date of casting of the flexural members subjected to full dead load
and 1.25 times the imposed load for 24 hours and then the imposed load shall be
removed. The maximum deflection of the member during 24 hours under
imposed load in mm should be less than 40 l2/D, where l is the effective span in
m and D is the overall depth of the member in mm. For members showing more
deflection, the recovery of the deflection within 24 hours of removal of the
imposed load has to be noted. If the recovery is less than 75 per cent of the
deflection under imposed load, the test should be repeated after a lapse of 72
hours. The structure is considered unacceptable if the recovery is less than 80
per cent.
There are further provisions of conducting non-destructive tests like
ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), rebound hammer, probe penetration, pull out and
maturity, as options to core tests or to supplement the data obtained from a
limited number of cores. However, it is important that the acceptance criteria shall
be agreed upon prior to these non-destructive testing. There are reports that UPV
tests conducted three days after casting after removal of side formwork give very
dependable insight about the quality of concrete.

1.2.6 Concluding Remarks

Version 2 CE IIT, Kharagpur